Remembering 1956

They don't like the system

OCTOBER 23rd is a resonant date for Hungarians. Fifty-five years ago the failed anti-Soviet uprising began when teenage street fighters started lobbing Molotov cocktails at Russian tanks. The revolution was crushed by the Soviets, but remains seared into the country's collective consciousness.

The young, middle-aged and elderly protestors at yesterday's demonstration in Budapest hoped to capture the spirit of 1956. Tens of thousands of them marched under the banner of Nem tetszik a rendszer? ("You don't like the system?"). See video footage here.

Organised by a Facebook group, the protest was peaceful, good-humoured and crackling with energy, despite the rain and winds. The crowds stretched from the Elizabeth Bridge into the heart of the city, and probably exceeded the numbers at the first such mass protest in March this year.

Budapest is hardly the only European capital to be convulsed by protest at the moment. But the Hungarian crowds were not focused on the iniquities of global capitalism. They were protesting against what they see as the government's increasing centralisation of power.

This, they say, has taken several forms. Once-independent institutions such as the state presidency have been filled with supporters of the ruling Fidesz party, independent-minded journalists have been sacked or sidelined, and civil servants have been purged simply for having served under the former, Socialist, administration.

Opposition politicians were spotted in the crowd yesterday, but none was allowed to speak. Instead Péter Juhász, an organiser, praised the crowd for “listening to our voice for democracy” and Balázs Dénes, of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, warned of a political system based on “muscle-flexing”.

But as Mr Dénes noted, outrage counts for little. The question is how to channel the energy and dissatisfaction on display yesterday. Of the opposition parties, neither the imploding Socialists nor the green-liberal LMP party seems capable of that. So where next?

The non-party-political nature of the Facebook group appeals to many. If it were to morph into a new party, it could lose many of its supporters. But with no organisational base to channel the protestors' civic spirit, little can change.

In any case, the government roundly rejects the protestors' claims. Last April Fidesz won the biggest parliamentary majority in any Hungarian election since the fall of communism. After eight years of sloth and corruption under the Socialists, the government has a clear mandate for change, and intends to pursue it. Yesterday's protest was clear evidence that democracy is thriving in Hungary, say officials.

Only a thousand or so people turned up to a separate march organised by Jobbik, a nasty far-right party. Gábor Vona, Jobbik's leader, pledged to finish the 1956 revolution, under a banner proclaiming Kimentek a tankok, bejöttek a bankok ("The tanks left, the banks came in").

Yet the small size of the Jobbik protest belies the far-right's growing influence, in culture as well as politics. György Dörner, the new director of the Új Szinház (New Theatre), one of Budapest's cultural institutions, is an outspoken supporter of the far right. His first appointment was István Csurka, a talented playwright who is also leader of MIEP, an anti-Semitic party.

The decision by István Tarlós, Budapest's mayor and a Fidesz man, to give Mr Dörner the job caused outrage, especially as the outgoing director had reapplied for his post. As Jobbik rises in the polls, many saw Mr Dörner's appointment as a gesture by Fidesz to far-right voters that it will look after their interests.

Hungary has a dazzling cultural heritage. But the appointment of Mr Dörner, previously best known for voicing Eddie Murphy and Bruce Willis characters in dubbed films, has done little for its image. Christoph Von Dohnanyi, a prominent German conductor, has cancelled planned appearances at the Hungarian State Opera. In a letter, he said that he “does not want to appear in a city whose mayor entrusted the direction of a theatre to two known, extreme right-wing anti-Semites”.

But Mr Tarlós is not listening. After several Hungarian theatre figures wrote an open letter complaining about the decision he reportedly described them as “inconsiderate, irritating and contemptible”. Such remarks are likely only to bring out more demonstrators on to Budapest's streets.

The Economist doesn't like the government, just like more than two thirds of the Hungarian adult population. Fickle bunch, those Hungarians... I guess that's what happens when you elect a party that has no program whatsoever, except, "We are not the Socialists."

BTW, I've been at the demonstration and it felt good. In Hungary mostly the right wing can bring thousands of people to the streets with speakers who are spreading hatred, fear and stupidity. Here they talked about democracy, solidarity and the protection of cultural values. The problem is that the majority of the audience were intelligent, liberal and thinking people, and they don't like to vote for parties because there is always something they don't agree with. What can you do with that?

guest-iwwsjoa, you wrote that Fidesz gained "more than 60% of the votes in the election"; this is wrong. It only won some 50% of the vote, and it was only thanks to the fragmentation among the other parties, the electoral threshold and the partially district-based electoral system that this was enough to win a 2/3 majority in parliament.

You write that "Newspapers, radio stations, TV chanels, and online news portals [in Hungary] all published articles just like the one above." Not the public media. Thanks to the new media law, Hungarian public TV and Radio can only broadcast news produced by the state news agency MTI.

You write that "Today - unlike 4 or 5 years ago - [p]eople are allowed to gather and demonstrate and so they did yesterday bringing along their children and friends. There was no aggression on behalf of the police." People were allowed to demonstrate peacefully four years ago too, as Fidesz regularly showed. It was only when the far right violently stormed the TV building at night that the police clamped down accordingly. Trust me, I went round on my bike to watch every riot that followed, and the rioters eagerly played cat and mouse with the police for hours, lobbing an endless rain of rocks at the cops. If they had behaved as yesterday's anti-Orban demonstrators did, without violence, there would have been no police clampdown either.

You write that "authors of The Economics, similarly to any other democratic or non-democratic news platforms, are not free to write whatever they like on a worldwide-read website". They are. Regulatory limits on the British press are fairly minimal. Unlike in Hungary, where the new Fidesz-staffed Media Council and the new, far-reaching media laws extend their authority in full to the press as well, the British press is self-regulated. As long as it steers clear from libel, the Economist is fine. If you'd like to see a libel case started over the opinions posted in this blog, I can only wish you the best of luck - even in Britain, where libel laws are over-used, such a case wouldn't stand a shred of a chance.

You ask: Who is the rest of the world, which doesn't think that everything is perfectly fine with Hungarian democracy? To start with, I'd recommend looking into the reviews and opinions published this past year by the Council of Europe human rights commissioner, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, the Venice Commission, the UN reporter on freedom of expression, and various government members from Germany, France, the U.S., the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Luxemburg.

While the article clearly tries to underline the severeness of the current situation in Hungary, only three and a half lines talk about the actual reasons of this protest. There is simply no evidence that Hungarian democracy is hurt. The assumption that Fidesz kills democracy by promoting people of its own in the civil sector (after gaining more than 60% of the votes in the election) has no support nor real life evidence whatsoever - so far. Democracy is still thriving. Newspapers, radio stations, TV chanels, and online news portals all published articles just like the one above. Clearly, people were not and are not in fear just because they do not agree with the government. Today - unlike 4 or 5 years ago - no one is afraid of going out to the streets to protest. People are allowed to gather and demonstrate and so they did yesterday bringing along their children and friends. There was no aggression on behalf of the police - on the contrary, the state made sure that the demonstration was peaceful and the protesters were safe on the streets. Unlike the previous goverment a few years ago.

@Cesar H: OMG, this totally brought me to tears:) So what you're saying is that the whole US State Department, along with US diplomats in Hungary, and various European institutions are all misinformed by "leftist and liberal comrades, friends and business partners of the former thief and irresponsible ex-communist-liberal government"? Don't you think that foreign observers have access to the Media Law, for instance, so that they can decide for themselves whether they think it's undemocratic or not? Your conspiracy theories are ridiculous, and unfortunately your likes make Hungary a laughingstock.

There is no single piece of information in the above article that you could not find in the Hungarian media coverage form yesterday. It is a lie to say that the Hungarian media is under pressure by the government and does not provide detailed description of what happened yesterday. Living abroad, I read this article after having read various Hungarian coverages - and I could not specify a single piece of information that I had not read before in the Hungarian media publications.

Hungarians can bring out thousands onto the streets to manifest their dislike for whatever government they don't like. Try to do that in Moscow ! Under Putin's regime demonstrators are told where to gather, what signs to carry, what the speakers can or cannot say. This system is known as Putin-ocracy.

As one of those present, I am both amazed and delighted how well your article captured the direction of our movement and the spirit of the rally. Thank you for your keen eyes and your attention, amidst all the upheaval in Europe, not to mention TROTW (therestoftheworld or Other Country -- this is a running joke here). The Economist (I am a faithful subscriber, btw) is doing its job. But here your attention and coverage provides immense resources as our media -- as The Economist was to first to describe in detail -- is completely controlled by the government. Foreign news coverage of important events is faster, better and far more impartial than what an ordinary citizen can find in the Hungarian language media (including commercial media, under pressure from the government).

I thank you, as a citizen of Hungary and Europe (wherever it is heading).

You write: “independent-minded journalists have been sacked or sidelined, and civil servants have been purged simply for having served under the former, Socialist, administration”

This quote well illustrates the author’s pervasive ignorance or wilful misrepresentation of the Hungarian situation. The Economist once again showed that it is not what it pretends to be, an objective news source that provides intelligent, thorough analysis of the subject it reports on. This peace is nothing more than an exercise in polemics against the current Hungarian government, and/or a partisan political pamphlet.

What the author does not tell the reader is that:

The post 1956 political and social situation (resulting from the suppression of the revolution) remained the unchanged and unchallenged political and social paradigm of the 1989 ‘democratic change’.
The 1989 ‘change’, until recently, did not bring about the structural and political changes in Hungarian society that the freedom fighters of 1956 died for.

The fact is that the 1989 change and the then ruling party the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party’s (HSWP) transformation into Hungarian Socialist Party (HSP) was at best a charade. The HSWP turned HSP never ever distanced itself from or god forbid apologized for its bloody, dictatorial past, so much so that even the, now retired, ex-communist leaders directly responsible for the torture and death of tens of thousands of people and ruining the lives of millions, continued to draw their very high pensions, paid by their victims through their taxes. Beyond this, after the “changes” of 1989 the ex-dictators and the (in name only) “new” HSP turned ‘zealous’ democrats, retained their complete infrastructure with which they controlled and terrorised the country for 40 years.

First of all they retained their political infrastructure (the party structure, its assets, finances and personnel). Second, they retained their bureaucratic infrastructure (only trusted comrades were allowed to work in mid and senior managerial positions in all levels of government, and all of these people stayed in their position after the changes). Third, the HSP retained its control over the media, education and cultural life, where again, all mid and senior lever positions were filled with party loyalists. Fourth, the HSP retained its control over the police and the army for similar reasons. Fifth, the HSP and its leadership, retained control over the budding market economy: the communist-era business leaders (also mostly party loyalists), oversaw the privatisation process.

The signs of the duplicity of this cynically calculated ‘democratic change’ of 1989 are the following:

a) Because of its sustained control over much of Hungarian social and political life, a number of opposition parties did not even survive very long, and no opposition government ever won a second election, while the HSP, until recently survived everything, and did win second terms in government.

b) Because, after the changes, it retained control over the economic life of the country, the members (especially the leadership) of the HSP became members of the new-rich in Hungary in alarmingly disproportionate numbers. They were the ‘true socialists’, the ‘party of the people’ who presided over selling of Hungarian resources well under market price to foreign investors, promoting free market capitalism that would have made Margaret Thatcher jealous, and campaigned hard for the introduction of privatised healthcare, which would have made G.W. Bush proud. And they, the members of the HSP, did all this while getting filthy rich on the process.

After the infamous speech at Öszöd by the then Prime Minister Gyurcsány, when he ackonlwedged that they (the HSP) won the elections by ’cheeting and lying day and night’ al this charade became christal clear for the people, and the then opposition party Fidesz correctly read the mood of the people, which reasulted in their well-known two-third majority in the last elections.

In this situation Fidesz and Orbán did not have much of a choice. They had to finish what 1956 started: a structural change in Hungaran society. That included a more proportional representation in leadership positions of others than old communist insiders, and yes this did mean change of personell in governent burocracies, in the media, in the police and the muilitary, etc. However, to say that this balancing of representation means that there are Fidesz people eevrywhere, is simply an outragouse lie. Any honest journalist should have asked, long time ago, why were no such changes intorduced before? Why was the HSP allowed to retain such a disproportinately large, financed by taxpayers money, political, cultural and power infrastructure? Why was this not identified as a threat to democracy in Hungary before?

This article does not take any of this into account and because of that willingly or unwillingly lies and misinforms the reader.

Everyone - Pay no attention to Cesar H. He is a provocateur that the Orbanistas sent to do their barking for them on this page. His mentality is couched in baseless conspiracy theories and "whoever is not with us is with the Socialists." Responding to him only encourages him.

The problem is, Fideszers mostly came up under communism, and their political reflexology offers clear evidence. They see conspiracies everywhere and look to the powerful state apparatus to take care of enemies, real and imagined. This is not to say that their methods are the same as the commies: These days, they just like to insult, sneer and attack - for example, see the sexist attacks that Fidesz toady Gergely Boszormenyi-Nagy leveled against Dorottya Karsay, who led the protests about which Adam LeBor wrote in his piece. http://www.168ora.hu/landingpage/alneven-szolt-be-navracsics-embere-a-tu...

Typically, Borszormenyi-Nagy was too much of a coward to use his real name, so he went by "Robin Masters."

"But as Mr Dénes noted, outrage counts for little. The question is how to channel the energy and dissatisfaction on display yesterday. Of the opposition parties, neither the imploding Socialists nor the green-liberal LMP party seems capable of that. So where next?

The non-party-political nature of the Facebook group appeals to many. If it were to morph into a new party, it could lose many of its supporters. But with no organisational base to channel the protestors' civic spirit, little can change."

One of the organisations behind the protests, 4K! – Negyedik Köztársaság Mozgalom ("The Fourth Republic Movement"), has announced its intention to incorporate as a party only a few hours ago. The devil is in the details: defining itself as a left-wing initiative striving for a form of participatory democracy, it "seeks to avoid the mistakes of LMP, and while denouncing him, they would be willing to join [former socialist PM] Gyurcsany to defeat Fidesz." Which, we might add, is one thing LMP is unwilling to do, and one thing for which the old left hates them. Some might say, hate them enough to establish a new political party to sideline them.

An interesting article. I am not really a big fan of the Economist overall, as articles about Hungary cannot seem to exist without making reference to the growth of anti Semitism, and prominent right wingers being given jobs. Yes, that stinks, but there is another agenda in Hungary which is one of deep reform. I am not certain that the reforms being applied are all the right ones, but reform is nevertheless vital and ongoing.

I don’t believe for a moment that there is an anti Semitic tendency within Fidesz, and the growth of right wing politics is not just a Hungarian phenomenon, but a European, probably global one. This is a symptom of the economy. I do find what is happening in Hungary quite upsetting, but in a worldwide context Hungary's problems are not all that bad. Ask a Greek citizen - they are teetering on the brink of collapse and serious civil unrest. Hungary's problems consist of a perceived centralization of power (something many in the UK are calling for), regulated press (something most of the UK is calling for) and a racist in charge of a theatre (who cares?). The fact is there will be an election soon, and Hungary's biggest problem is a lack of credible opposition. There is a major need for a new political party made up of people (members as well as activists), who are intelligent, urbane, and campaigning for an equitable system. There is also a huge need to address the way the country's citizens act towards each other. Roma are treated as second class citizens whom people look to in fear, a massive amount of anti Roma racism is seen everywhere – much more so than anti Semitism, and it rarely gets a mention. Politicians are all believed to be corrupt, right wing nutters, or corrupt liberal ex communists. I have met Hungarian politicians on both sides who believe in honest public service. The middle class are apathetic voters - they rarely express a view at the polls. If the people who attended that demonstration are representative of the electorate, then only a small majority of them voted vote in national elections, and a minority vote in local and European elections. The people of Hungary should be proud of the demonstrations, and proud that they are possible. But they also need to vote in numbers, demand more of their politicians, and they should themselves campaign against corruption and racism rather than expecting the government to be the only source of forward movement. Hungary needs to mobilise a new politically aware population who care enough to not only voice their concerns, but who care enough to act upon them to make a better country.

1) The Economist is a magazine of opinion, and has never claimed to be anything else. Their editorial policy is biased toward free markets, individual liberty and democratic pluralism. It should therefore come as no surprise that when a government (especially a government that includes unrepentant former communists) starts to dismantle the free market system, curb individual liberty and put up obstacles to democratic pluralism, The Economist should criticize it. When people accuse The Economist of being biased, the answer should be, "of course it is."

2) Eastern Approaches did not devote much attention to the riots of 2006. Eastern Approaches did not exist until 2010.

3) Calling other commenters "liars" and "stupid" is counterproductive. It's the kind of mudslinging that is characteristic of the drunks in the Hungarian borozos, and I do not believe they read The Economist. People may be unaware of certain facts, and you can explain the facts to them; or, they might have a different explanation for events than you do. This is why we have these discussion forums.

4) The argument that "Fidesz would have gotten 98% of the seats in parliament in Great Britain" is as absurd as saying "The Socialists would have gotten 19% of the seats in Sweden." This 98% argument was first espoused by the most soft-headed of all Hungarian think tanks, Political Capital. Intelligent people should discard it.

If Hungary had had a first-past-the-post electoral system like in the UK, the various political parties would have pursued entirely different strategies over the past 20 years. They would have paid more attention to strengthening candidates' personal ties to an electoral district and less attention to requiring candidates to support nationwide strategies. Voters, too, would be more in tune with the candidates' attributes and would base their votes on personalities alongside party policies.

As it stands, Hungary chose a mix of first-past-the-post (Great Britain and the US) and proportional representation (Scandinavians). The result was, Fidesz's 53% of the vote brought them 68% of the seats in parliament, and the Socialists' 19% of the vote translated into 13% of the seats.

If the voting system had been different, no doubt the results would have been different, too. I don't think anyone argues that. But a different voting system could have reduced Fidesz's margin of victory just as easily as it could have raised it. Naturally, it depends on the details of the system.

Ruling Fidesz-KNDP is still twice as strong as the second biggest party (was until the day before yesterday, 'cause since then the ex-communists have exploded, at least into two distinct pieces)
WHILE 4 years ago, at the same stage of the government cycle, the ruling parties had totally lost grounds already: Fidesz-KDNP, in opposition, was three times stronger in the polls than the parties of the ex-communist-liberal coalition together, putting it differently - and using your stupid interpretation of statistical data - 85% of the Hungarian adult population wished ex-communists and liberals go to hell

The Hungarian government later reported 10-30 thousand protesters (...)only which is an obvious LIE, the "free" official media did NOT say a word about the protest itself, the street CCTV-s did not show the crowd ("they all were inoperational" officials said), should I say more ?? Democracy is falling rapidly !
George from Budapest

@ miohun, and to the rest of the people referring to "rest of the world's opinion":
it's natural but shameful at the same time that leftist and liberal comrades, friends and business partners of the former thief and irresponsible ex-communist-liberal government protect their interests in Hungary, taking over outrageously biased statements of hasbeen criminals
The well-known scenario is the following: couple of politicians and intellectuals committed to the communist-liberal ideology and/or bought by these politicians, already fallen into discredit and being in dread of losing power, influence and free lunch (yes, it does exist, only for the "Chosen", though) formulate the elements of defamation, circulate these downright lies to their foreign comrades and obligated, who - renouncing to the basic principles of objective and unbiased journalism - publicise these lies, which are later quoted back as "independent opinions".
This is how it works. It's outrageously disgraceful :(